Suggestion: new Test Suite web interface

[Viktor Persson]

I've been writing/running a lot of test lately and thought about some things that could improve the test suite web interface.

• Navigation: Access any test from any view.
  
• Settings: Allow using any mix of debug settings: "Show Passes", "Analyze Code Coverage" and "Debug Output".
• Presentation
• Misc: Fix so you don't manually have to add "&app=0" when running tests on plugins which are located outside of your /app/ directory.
  

Allowing any mix of settings in combination with enabling to run any test from any view saves you a lot of clicks.

This is a very rough mockup and I'm looking to improve it in iterations by feedback. With a bit of polish it will look way more attractive. A usable and attractive test suit adds to the overall impression of Cake.

[mark_story]

That's pretty cool looking. It might be a total pain to implement though. PHPUnit might give you some trouble in building a slick interface like that, but if you have the time and patience I think it would be neat to see built.

As an aside, is there a reason you don't just use CLI runner?

-Mark

[Ravage84]

Looks really nice.
I'd love to see a search field.
If I'm looking for a certain test, I'll just start entering the name of it and it filters me (ajaxy) the tests from all categories (core, app, plugins).

Probably there is a good reason why there is no such web runner for PHPUnit besides the one we already have in CakepPHP.
May be such an effort could be achieved by starting a CakePHP independant project?
One that may be isn't focused only on being implemented in CakePHP only but potentially other frameworks and/or other web applications like web shops and CMS.
This way you could attract more potential contributors.

Good Luck ;-)

Marc

[Frank de Graaf (Phally)]

Slick interfaces make stuff generally more fun to do. So I think this could really help getting newbies into unit testing. I secretly like to use it myself (even though I haven't got anything against the CLI).

The mock-up looks pretty good and intuitive. I would like to see it become reality as well.

Op vrijdag 26 juli 2013 17:49:59 UTC+2 schreef Viktor Persson het volgende:

[euromark]

It is usually also quite faster to click 2-3 times in the UI instead of typing a few commands.

And with lots of tests the console also gets kinda hard to navigate with.

Besides a few other upsides I mentioned on the other topic.

So yeah, a good looking (and working) interface is something that can really have some value.

Looking forward to it.

[Viktor Persson]

@mark_story: "As an aside, is there a reason you don't just use CLI runner?"

I'm fairly new to tests (at least in practice), as I've been working on one of those "we don't have time for tests / sell the product before its ready" kind of projects for quite some time. I've found it kinda handy to just bookmark AllTests.php and run it in a dedicated tab in my browser.

@Ravage84

A search field is a good idea. I'll include one in the next revision. I also agree that making it a CakePHP independant project could be wise.

@Phally: "Slick interfaces make stuff generally more fun to do"

Agreed!

-

I'll continue by making a more comprehensive mockup and explore the code a bit to get a better grasp on what's possible and not (it's just code, how hard can it be? ;).

[mark_story]

Interesting, I find typing much faster than mousing personally. I also use make for my projects to cobble together even easier to type commands for doing things.

-Mark

[euromark]

Remember that on some OS you might not always have the autocomplete on typing.

I think there are other less relevant pieces that should be thrown over board (Console shell as I mentioned yesterday), but it does neither hurt to keep the web test runner

nor does it help newbies to start getting into testing when it is removed now.

So it is a win/win keeping it.

[euromark]

Side note: https://github.com/NSinopoli/VisualPHPUnit

Might be worth taking a closer look at.

[Viktor Persson (vikpe)]

Mockup changes

• Added search field
  
• Added "Log Queries" option
  
• Added "Show skipped tests" toggler
  
• Added a failed pass
  

Binding a shortcut key using jQuery event listener or whatever in order to jump to the search field or "recent" would be nice.

Here are some additional mockups showing how search/recent could look like. I also added a mockup of how multiple tests could be run at once (besides running AllTests etc).